New to the iPad world is the tower defense game we all love to love, Kingdom Rush HD from Ironhide Games, a port of Kingdom Rush for browsers released not too long ago. The team had a bit of a problem when an unauthorized clone appeared on the iTunes App Store weeks before release. The knockoff was spotted and eventually removed (whew), leaving space for this excellent port of an already excellent game to wow and surprise gamers in the iOS device realm!

Here's the scoop if you haven't already fallen for this lovely little game. Kingdom Rush HD sends waves of nasty creatures stomping through your kingdom, ranging from orcs and goblins to wulfs, ogres and shaman. Armed with a dozen types of towers and a fistful more of special abilities, you have the task of eliminating them one by one, gathering gold and inflating your ego as you go.

Kingdom Rush HD is very strategy-oriented, even though the complexity is never too much for a casual gamer to handle. You won't get by with plastering buildings all over the place and kicking back with a grilled cheese sandwich while the coins roll in, however. Placing forts to send melee soldiers out to stall enemies while ranged attacks hit them from above is a good start, but enemies can also be strong or weak to your attacks, so you have to cater tower placement to keep the damage flowing. Not only that, but managing the skill tree with over 35 things to unlock takes some thought, and deciding whether to upgrade a tower versus building new ones carries more weight than in most tower defense games. No sleeping allowed, you've gotta pay attention!

Along with the usual set of towers to place, Kingdom Rush HD also gives you a helping of special powers you can summon during battle. The staple "call for reinforcements" will get a lot of use, as it allows you to bring a few soldiers in to place anywhere on the map. But then there's the "rain fiery meteors of death from the sky" spell, which, naturally, is a lot more entertaining. Abilities are on a timer, so you can't just spam them over and over again, but they do add quite a bit of strategy and a little action to the mix.

Analysis: Armed to the gills with features, options, upgrades, achievements and stages, Kingdom Rush HD has the feel of a full-fledged console or PC game crammed neatly into your touch screened iPad. You almost wouldn't believe it began its life as "just" a Flash game! This amount of content will keep you busy many afternoons in a row, and once you start seeing new terrain and big bosses, consider yourself hooked!

Kingdom Rush can be filed in the thin folder marked "games that are pretty much perfect". The visuals are superb, with excellent artwork lining every level. The units and enemies are on the small size, but when they attack in swarms, you can't really have goblins the size of your thumb walking around. The slowly building strategies involved in mastering the game are well-timed, and your hand is never held while you play, apart from a few tips during tough waves and a tiny four screen tutorial at the beginning. You're on your own to figure things out, but it's an absolute joy to do so!

If you need a game that's going to draw you in to its own little world, Kingdom Rush HD fits the bill. It's got loads of content, plenty of unlockables to keep you driven to play wave after wave of enemies, and it looks so good you don't want to peel your eyes away. The touch controls are arguably more intuitive than a mouse, making this the perfect game for kicking back on the couch and playing until well beyond your bed time!

I will add to this as needed, but for now, here are screenshots of my final winning tower placements for some of the hardest levels in Kingdom Rush for iPad:

Note: For all the hardest challenges, make sure you have ALL UPGRADES to the reinforcements. The reason for this is that with the last upgrade you gain the SPEAR THROW ability, which is critical for helping to get all flying enemies, as well as helping immensely with defense. Use reinforcements wisely that posess the SPEAR THROW ability by placing them BEHIND enemy front lines where they'll do the most damage (by throwing their spears instead of hand-to-hand combat).

Micro-managing with Reinforcements and Rain of Fire is crucial, especially during the Wulf and Rocket Rider waves.

Concentrate of upgrading both artillery cannons to 500mm Big Berthas, including filling all 3 slots of both upgrades, before moving on to upgrading the Archer Towers to Rangers Hideouts.

When upgrading the Rangers Hideouts, make sure you fill all 3 slots of both upgrades. The Poison Arrows help with heavily armored enemies, while Wrath of the Forest helps with clearing all the skeletons created by the Necormancers.

Sarelgaz's Lairs: Heroic Challenge

I took several screenshots of this fight to show some of the tower upgrade progression:

Micro-managing with Reinforcements and Rain of Fire is crucial in the very beginning until you can get the first 2 Rangers Hideouts filled with 3 Wrath upgrades each (Wrath of the Forest).

Fill one Hideout with Wrath upgrades before moving onto the next. Each additional upgrade is cheaper than the first, so you get more bang for the buck early on, which is very important in this challenge.

Wrath will kill most of the spiders and keep them at bay while you build more Rangers Hideouts and expand.

The Barbarians weren't very crucial to this setup, so concentrate on giving first priority to the Hideouts and Wrath upgrades.

Poison Arrows were not needed to win this challenge.

If you're having trouble with one of the levels, post a comment here and I'll try to post some help in the form of screenshots and strategy.

21 Comments

I agree with everything you said. But one thing must be added. The Humor!! Oh man, the movies (evil dead FTW) and music reference all in the best acting voices you'll ever hear in a "simple" game, this sure is the funniest tower defense game i ever played.

I loved every minute playing this game on the iPad. It's a top notch release that gets my vote for Game of the Year.

And WOW. Some of the later levels are downright nasty in difficulty, much, much more difficult than its Flash-based sibling. Yes, some of the waves of enemies have been tweaked in this version, and if you played the Flash version, you're in for a much more challenging experience on iOS.

The other reason it's more difficult is that you don't have the additional features included with the "Premium" content that serve to make the Flash version much easier to complete. And I believe that's a good thing.

I'll include some of my winning placements of towers for some of the hardest levels in another comment for anyone who may be frustrated that the in-game strategy guide includes Youtubes of someone playing the Flash version, and those don't really help with the iPad version.

In summary I agree with John: Kingdom Rush is a perfect game and if you have an iPad, you really owe it to yourself to pick this one up without question.

I will add to this as needed, but for now, here are screenshots of my final winning tower placements for some of the hardest levels in Kingdom Rush for iPad:

Note: For all the hardest challenges, make sure you have ALL UPGRADES to the reinforcements. The reason for this is that with the last upgrade you gain the SPEAR THROW ability, which is critical for helping to get all flying enemies, as well as helping immensely with defense. Use reinforcements wisely that posess the SPEAR THROW ability by placing them BEHIND enemy front lines where they'll do the most damage (by throwing their spears instead of hand-to-hand combat).

Micro-managing with Reinforcements and Rain of Fire is crucial, especially during the Wulf and Rocket Rider waves.

Concentrate of upgrading both artillery cannons to 500mm Big Berthas, including filling all 3 slots of both upgrades, before moving on to upgrading the Archer Towers to Rangers Hideouts.

When upgrading the Rangers Hideouts, make sure you fill all 3 slots of both upgrades. The Poison Arrows help with heavily armored enemies, while Wrath of the Forest helps with clearing all the skeletons created by the Necormancers.

Sarelgaz's Lairs: Heroic Challenge

I took several screenshots of this fight to show some of the tower upgrade progression:

Micro-managing with Reinforcements and Rain of Fire is crucial in the very beginning until you can get the first 2 Rangers Hideouts filled with 3 Wrath upgrades each (Wrath of the Forest).

Fill one Hideout with Wrath upgrades before moving onto the next. Each additional upgrade is cheaper than the first, so you get more bang for the buck early on, which is very important in this challenge.

Wrath will kill most of the spiders and keep them at bay while you build more Rangers Hideouts and expand.

The Barbarians weren't very crucial to this setup, so concentrate on giving first priority to the Hideouts and Wrath upgrades.

Poison Arrows were not needed to win this challenge.

If you're having trouble with one of the levels, post a comment here and I'll try to post some help in the form of screenshots and strategy.

@Ken: That happened with my first save game, after completing the 2nd campaign the 3rd wouldn't open up.

I've read that there is a bug in the current version and that can happen, but that it will be fixed with the next update, which is due out about Jan 2 or 3rd. Also included in that update will be a new expansion stage, Ruins of Acaroth.

The only fix for the issue that I know of is to delete that saved game and start again. When you complete a campaign, and until the update, make sure you wait for the next stage to open up before doing anything else. I was able to complete the entire game using the 2nd saved game slot after my first one got stuck.

Annnnnd I spoke to soon. I was able (eventually) to beat Level 12 Iron and Level 13 Heroic, but for the life of me I can't even get close on Level 13 Iron. I've tried all sorts of combinations based on your recommendations, but quickly get overwhelmed by spiders before I can get enough towers built. Any further suggestions?

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